Kyle Whelliston's quest for 100 games got a boost Saturday when he was handed a free ticket for the Big 5 Challenge tripleheader at the Palestra.

While I was in Reading, Christmas shopping with the wife and kids, Kyle watched as Penn trounced LaSalle, Temple edged Villanova, and a St. Joe's loss to Drexel that drove him to write to the Hawk. Not a Hawk, like Phil Martelli or one of the players. The Hawk.

We were headed to a HS girls' game in Oley and got sidetracked by some great bargains at the VF Outlets. The team we were going to see only scored 33 points and lost. Best to get the shopping out of the way without having to miss any important games, I suppose.

But I digress. This is not a post about shopping, or Sweet Street's sublime Dulce le Leche Cheesecake, which they sell for a buck-and-a-quarter a slice in the outlet's food court, making it almost as good a bargain as Kyle's tickets.

No, this post is about Kyles's Palestra trilogy.

I never read Carlos Castaneda, and I didn't bother following Kyle's link to try to fully understand what he was talking about when he started his story about the Penn-LaSalle game with this reference:

"Carlos Castaneda's primary life mantra, "fly past the eagle and be free," probably wouldn't go over too well in Philadelphia, a town stuck in a perpetual heartbreak cycle with its football team. But he was still a pretty neat guy."

I did get it, though, when he said of the free ticket he was handed when he was about to walk away:

"I had been "miracled in," just like that time during the summer I followed the Grateful Dead around the Midwest."

And I definitely enjoyed reading about the rest of his afternoon.

His 100-game quest has all the makings of a long, strange trip. You can follow it all season at his Mid-Majority site.